January 02, 2017

In my last pompous disquisition upon this season of RWBY I prattled on for about 150 words about how the CGI fight animation/choreography was not as good as those of the earlier seasons.

Yeah.

About that...

It does appear that my argument has been invalidated by recent developments.

Monty would be proud of these people.

As for the non-FX aspects of this episode.

Wow.

This was not filler.

We find out what's going on with Checkov's farmhand.

There's been this random farmboy named Oscar who talks to himself and who we've been seeing periodically for no readily apparent reason. Well, it appears that he has no connection to anything going on in the story...except that he's now possessed by the ghost of Ozpin who is trying to convince the Oscar that A: Oscar's not insane and B: He really needs to go to Haven (the ultimate goal of Ruby's party)

Weiss announces that she's leaving to take Ironwood up on his offer. In response, she gets beaten by her father, learns that she's been stripped of her inheritance, that she has been declared mentally incompetent and that she's now essentially a prisoner and will remain so until she breaks. After realizing the sheer depth of the betrayal that she's suffered and receiving yet another emotional gut punch,Weiss has herself a rather perfunctory cry....that, amusingly, lasts about 6 seconds.

You see, this is not the spoiled debutante that began the series...Weiss is a character that has developed beyond all expectations.

There is the little matter of the aforementioned fight. Catching him in mid-gloat, Ruby does force Tyrian to withdraw...but only after indirectly causing a grave injury to Qrow, who with what appears to be a mortal wound attempts to let Ruby, Jaune, Ren and Nora in on what's going o....
Roll Credits

Every aspect of the three ring circus that was this episode was consequential and full of surprises. Even the quiet conversations, far removed from the cares of the world keep one on the edge of their seats.

I remain surprised at just how impressive that Weiss, of all people, has become.

This show still has five or six more episodes to screw everything up, but as of now RWBY remains first rate.